I'm not a demographic, so why the hell should I vote?

[Unwardil]

This thought occurred to me today when I was trying to be a good informed voter for the upcoming Canadian election and actually go out and see what the hell the major political parties are bickering about this time.

It's pretty much the usual stuff really, everybody accuses the incumbents of being shit, the incumbents point to the stuff they did alright, totally ignoring the stuff they didn't, Quebec continues to be butt hurt that english is the superior language, you know, same old same old.

The problem for me is, I don't really give a crap about any of the things they're talking about. I suppose I like the universal health care that we have, but honestly, I never use it. I wouldn't notice if every hospital blew up for the next 10-15 years because I'm relatively young and healthy. Maybe I'll care in the next decade, but both the major parties use it more as a game of political conkers anyway, each bitching that the other broke it and each claiming credit for keeping it operational at all. I think they're all wrong at this point, it exists because (politically speaking anyways) it always has and probably always will. It's like the bilingual thing, no matter what you think about it, we're always going to have it and it's always going to be a point of contention.

Basically, it's a none issue. It's too big to totally fail and it's too broken to ever be fixed. So I don't care.

Fiscally, I don't think any government is going to make a massive difference. I think they'll do what they always do, the Conservatives will overspend, the Liberals will over save, the NDP will never get elected so it doesn't matter and the Block Quebecois will bitch about sovereignty. It has always been thus and so it shall remain, such is democracy.

And that would be fine if one of the parties was actually specifically targeting a demographic that I fell into. But single mid twenties, homeowner with no debt but not enough income to have to pay income tax (yeah, I don't exactly know how I managed that combo, but GO ME!) isn't a demographic. I don't agree with any of the parties politics, I don't think any of them are better or worse for the country, no party wants to target my demographic with some sort of reward for getting them elected... Why the hell should I even bother to vote, other than to draw a penis on the ballot? (which is my current plan)

 

[lrkun]

Is voting mandatory in Canada?

If yes, then vote.

If not, is voting a right?

If yes, then it is your choice.

---

Personally, I don't vote, but not because I don't care, but because I am neutral. I support who wins.

 

[Prolescum]

Don't you have an equivalent of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party with policies like asking America if they want to join the Canadian Dollar or creating a 99c coin to save on change?

Perhaps you should stand...

 

[calvinhobbesliker]

Is the rhinocerous party still around?

 

[Unwardil]

There's no Rhinoceros party candidate running in my area to the best of my knowledge otherwise, yeah, totally that.

And don't get me wrong, I understand the purpose of voting, even if I don't for vote a party, because they track who votes and if people in a noticeable demographic are voting but not for the parties, they'll skew their policies to cater to that demographic if they can. Like students. If every student voted, you'd see student issues become a big deal because that 1% could swing a lot of hotly contested riddings one way or the other but hence my original point, if I'm not a demographic, what leverage have I got to employ by voting?

 

[Aught3]

Well since you've considered it and have no preference I don't think you should vote.

 

[televator]

Well, the only thing I can think of: You may not be a demographic, but surely others are. Are there other issues that might affect certain people that you might sympathize with?

 

[Unwardil]

Yeah, that's probably the next option I'll do is just talk to other people in the area and ask, basically, 'why are you voting for these people and why do you think I should vote that way also?'

 

[Kevin R Brown]

...Because it's your right to, and you can use your vote to help determine the political path taken by your country?

Do you want Canada to continue to be entangled in increasingly messy wars? Do you want the country to become increasingly privatized & deregulated, until we're closely emulating the American oligarchy? Vote Conservative, then.

If you don't want those things, find out who in your riding is the most likely to beat the Con-jobs and vote for them. The NDP tend to make pretty dumb infrastructure decisions, the Liberals tend to steal (though not as grotesquely as the Con-jobs), the Bloc are married to a dying demographic (though DuCeppe remains my favorite party leader by a wide margin) and the Greens have some foolish stances that are ultimately based on ignorance (their stance on nuclear energy, their stance on GE foods, etc) - but Harper is batshit fucking insane, and wants to hand everyone's money over to the 'job creators' (multinational corporations), because in his horribly deranged mind he think that gutting public services and handing everything over to already wealthy business owners will somehow create a magical utopia.

How much damage can the Con-jobs really do? Well, if Steve gets the majority he wants, I guess we'll find out.

We'll probably have to deal with a massive agricultural crisis in 20-30 years due to the loss of bird habitat thanks to the pine beetles and a subsequent explosion of weevils & grasshoppers.

 

[Unwardil]

So I voted anyways.

Penis'd the ballot, quite a good one I thought. I think my message was clear. 'I don't care who wins, just don't cock it up too badly'.

Couple of things really did it for me. Couldn't vote for the NPD's cap and trade thing. Sorry, don't really want my gas prices going up ANOTHER 20 cents per liter, not to mention my hydro bills. The liberals, well, I haven't actually heard anything they want to do, they just keep reminding me of the petty criminal things Harper's cabinet does but come on, they were no better there. Glass Houses liberals, glass houses. I couldn't actually see the difference between voting green and drawing a penis on the ballot, it would send the exact same message.

And realistically here, Canada recovered nicely from the 'economic downturn' if this year's bookings are anything to go by and while obviously that was a group effort by a minority government, can't really complain honestly. If we're going to have an army, we need fighter planes. Sorry all you peace and free love hippies, but that's the reality. Our military is already criminally under equipped and if we're going to follow our international commitments to N.A.T.O. and general peace keeping missions, we need fucking fight jets that don't fall out of the sky. Sending in ground troops without air superiority is asking them to die for their country. Being in Afghanistan is bad enough. Dieing in Afghanistan because you didn't have proper air coverage because the government skimped on the military budget is downright criminal.

ALSO, it was the Cretien government who got us into Afghanistan, not Harper. How quickly we forget that. Harper extended our mission there, but he didn't put us in there to begin with.

Sounds like I'm licking his ass at this point, I'm not. I don't like any of his social or economic policies, but at the same time, he seems to get the most flak for his good ideas like the fighter jets and scrapping the gun registry. The gun registry is a fucking HORRIBLE idea. Sure, punish the law abiding gun owners with extra red tape and bullshit because the criminals who already are illegally operating firearms are stealing guns. That's like prosecuting the rape victim. Requiring a license to own a gun is fine, but we already had that.

But then there's the vast gulf in ideologies, how he'd be perfectly amenable to banning gay marriage (luckily the supreme court told him he can't do that), cutting social programs, corporate handouts, etc etc, but then, the Liberals were pretty bad for corporate handouts too so... You see my point, the end result is, I don't really care. My Ballot got a giant Penis.